Speaker: BCS members, Arthur Dransfield
Career or Happenstance?
Eur Ing Arthur Dransfield - 09-11-2017
Arthur started as a junior programmer on the ICL 1900s at Queen Mary College, a year before graduating in 1969. Stop-Go public-sector funding in the 1970s/80s led him to oscillate between the MoD, QMC, Logica and the federal University Computing Services – finally coming rest back at Logica in 1989, from which he eventually retired in 2010. Meanwhile he had developed a parallel persona through various boards and committees of the BCS, Intellect UK, the BSI and especially in the TickIT third-party certification bodies for software and IT suppliers.
Arthur will explore the convoluted pathway that led him through many aspects of the computer industry and associated communities over 40+ years. From mainframe system programming in academia, through networking and telecoms, via national and international standards into software quality assurance, compliance, risk management and internal audit in a multinational solutions supplier. Was it a well-planned, structured career? – definitely not. Was any of it planned at all? – not really. In such a rapidly changing technology sector, interesting opportunities always seemed crop up, usually out of the blue, to explore something different but complementary to overall continuing professional development.
The talk is aimed at BCS members, particularly those who find themselves struggling to try to follow ‘conventional’ career development paths as the sector evolves around them. An emphasis will be placed on the benefits of getting involved in the Institution’s Boards and Committees, and of sharing professional experience and expertise with across the industry and wider communities, in parallel with pursuing continual group and personal professional development opportunities
MY LIFE AND HARD TIMES
Geoff McMULLEN, BCS – 09/11/2017
Geoff plans to describe the interesting parts of 54 years involvement with the computer industry, drawing on experience as a supplier, a user, a public servant and a producer of policy.
He will try to explain why he has found involvement in development of the IT profession essential, and hopes to leave others of the same opinion.
The talk is addressed to active members of the BCS. They can hope to leave with insight into the history over some 45 years of the institute, an understanding of how the definition of the profession has come about, and some views on where things are going.
Geoff joined NCR as a graduate trainee in 1963. He has also worked for CEIR, UNIVAC, Shell, JANET UK, the University of London and the Cabinet Office. He has been a systems engineer, a systems analyst, a manager of systems engineers, a director of data centres, head of Shell’s global IT advisory unit, a specialist in cost reduction, director of computing and administration for a £7bn turnover joint venture, creator of Shell’s internal infrastructure provider, chairman and CEO of JANET, director of the University of London computer centre and a high risk team leader for the Cabinet Office Gateway programme.
He joined BCS in 1966 and has been VP professional formation, Deputy President, President, BCS representative to CEPIS and ECDL. Other pro bono work includes chairing the IT National Training Organisation, establishing AISS, a collaborative venture that gave rise to SFIA, chairing an EC sponsored workshop that developed the ECF, being President of CEPIS and chairman of the Real Time Club. He has also been a trustee of various charities.
Despite a Kirton adaptor/innovator score of 127 and an obsession with change, he has been married for 50 years and finds most fulfilment as a husband, father and grandfather.
